Lee slugs again--> rifled choke??

[Vettepilot]

Hey guys,

I'm playing with the Lee Drive Key slugs. Both flavors, but mostly the 7/8 ounce puppy. Mixed results, like many people I guess, but I kind of like them. I've done a ton of research on them, bought lots of different wads, etc.

My main question today is about using them with a rifled choke. I don't find much info on that. Does the wad/slug stand a "snowball's chance in satan-land" of making it through one, or do they just skid-strip and make a mess? I can't find a rifled barrel for any of my shotguns; at least not for a good price. But I did convert the gun I want to use to accept my screw in rifled choke... if it might work.

Comments wecome--> what do you say??

I also could use some Unique powder load data for them. I have a fair amount of Unique I would like to use, but 7/8 ounce data for it is sparse, to non-existent. Such a versatile powder; surely seems like it would work? Maybe with a hot primer like a Federal 209A? (Just trying to guess here, why there's very little 7/8 ounce load data, when it works so well in 1 ounce and up!)

Thanks!!
Vettepilot

[TjB101]

The only recipe I could find was 24gr with 1 1/4oz weight … nothing in the 7/8 to 1oz range. I pulled some prior threads I had save and saw some note of 20gr at 1 oz shot with a 209a. If that’s all I had and could not find any data I’d probably be comfortable starting at 18 to 20 and see how it performs.

I’ve shot the 7/8 Lee with a rifled barrel, never a rifled choke. Had to use 12SL (pink) wad to fit thru the barrel. Worked ok.

[centershot]

VP,
Unique might work with a 7/8 oz. payload, you may need to bump up the charge weight to create enough pressure to get it to burn properly. No, you won't find data for that combo. If you have Red or Green Dot you'll be able to load to 1300 fps or thereabout, Red Dot would be my choice. I use 19.0 gr. of Red Dot with a 1 oz. round ball in my homemade "sabot" rounds, works great! From my M500 fully rifled barrel I get 2" groups, outside to outside. From my smoothbore 870 with a Carlson's rifled choke tube I get 3" groups, center to center.

So, yes, a rifled tube can work pretty well! There's been several threads of discussion here, some say it works and some others say no. I finally bought one last month and was pleasntly surprised how well it worked. I don't know how well it would work with full speed slugs. Some have fired Full speed Foster slugs through them and had very good results. Locally, I watched one fellow shoot 5 rounds of Remington Sluggers through his rifled tube, 15" group @ 50 yds. and a badly leaded tube! I watched him unscrew it and throw it in the trash can. Put in his IC choke and shot a 5" group, same as usual. You really won't know unless you try one.

[W.R.Buchanan]

VP: my standard load for 1 oz Lee Slugs in AA hulls is 18 gr of Green Dot. Claybuster Blue wad with a 1/8 card under the slug, what ever primers I have. This is my standard Trap Load with 1 1/8 oz of shot and is nowhere near a hot load. It would probably work for you too.

As far as running them thru a Rifled choke Tube I'll be testing some this weekend. At -1200 fps I don't see a problem with stripping as long as the fit is close. IE @ .730. It won't take much spin to stabilize these slugs.

The Lee Slugs are tapered about .010 from the front to back to compensate for Tapered Wad Petals. Mine are .728 at the front end.

Hope this helps.

Randy

[Vettepilot]

Thanks for the comments guys. Keep 'em coming please!

Vettepilot

[longbow]

Just catching up here!

Something I shared with Vettepilot but have not posted is published data for 7/8 oz. slug with Unique. That was once of the things he was looking for and info is indeed scarce so I figured someone else might be able to use it. as well. This data would be for full bore 7/8 oz. slug but subbing the Lee 7/8 oz. in a shotcup (no cushion leg or plastic gas seal) should be just fine.

To note though is that the wad column here for Unique and Herco is all card and fiber wads so I'd say best to not use a one piece plastic wad with gas seal or to put a plastic gas seal under the card wads. Plastic gas seals are much more efficient at holding pressure than card wads so these powder charges may result in over pressure if a plastic gas seal is used.

Hercules Reloading Guide.pdf
Reloading for Shotgunners.pdf

Play but play safe!

The page with red bordered tables is from an old Hercules powder reloading manual.

The page headed "Lead Slug Load Data" is from Reloading for Shotgunners.

Longbow

[FullTang]

I've shot zillions of 7/8 and 1 oz. Lee slugs through several shotguns, and I love them for tactical practice and general plinking fun. Generally, "International" loads (originally for shot, but fine to substitute) at 24 or 28 grams will work nicely, and don't use much powder. 1350 fps seems like plenty to me, and that's what these loads generate. I never use the load data provided by Lee, as these are overpowered and use way too much powder. If I want something faster, Longshot does the trick cleanly and efficiently (and loudly!) My best luck for accuracy in H&R rifled guns has come with WT12 (orange) wads in Win/Rem hulls (card under), or 12S0 wads (no card, no room!) in Fiocchi hulls with relatively slower velocities, but I've never gotten accuracy as good as Lyman 525 gr slugs or .735 RB out of the Lee slugs in a rifled barrel.

In a smooth bore Benelli Nova Tactical, which has a big bore and a 3 1/2" chamber, my best performance and accuracy comes with PT wads; either PT1205 bare or PT1210 with card under. I really like the 7/8 slug in either PT wad over 24 grains of e3, in a Fiocchi hull (could use any Euro hull). This is adapted from a BPI 7/8 shot load. These come screaming out of the barrel at over 1500 fps, but the recoil isn't bad at all. This also makes a great hi-vel buckshot load, BTW. However, beyond 30-40 yards, the accuracy of the Lee slugs, esp. from a smooth bore, degrades rapidly, and no amount of fiddling with cards or wads seems to help. I can't hit a 12" gong at 100 meters at all with any Lee slug load out of any of my guns, while I can hit it consistently with Lyman diabolo-style slugs all day long, even from a smooth bore. Out of the rifled barrels, the .735 RB actually allows for target shooting, with 4-5" groups at 100 yards---way better than any of the slugs.

You can get Unique to work with Lee slugs, but you have to use a fair amount of it. Not as bad as Blue Dot loads, but not as efficient as e3 or Red Dot. FortuneCookie45LC (famous YouTube reloader) used to recommend something like 29 grains for his loads, but I think YouTube made him get rid of load data. You can still find some of these old vids on the Reloader's Network.

[Vettepilot]

Just catching up here!

Something I shared with Vettepilot but have not posted is published data for 7/8 oz. slug with Unique. That was once of the things he was looking for and info is indeed scarce so I figured someone else might be able to use it. as well. This data would be for full bore 7/8 oz. slug but subbing the Lee 7/8 oz. in a shotcup (no cushion leg or plastic gas seal) should be just fine.

To note though is that the wad column here for Unique and Herco is all card and fiber wads so I'd say best to not use a one piece plastic wad with gas seal or to put a plastic gas seal under the card wads. Plastic gas seals are much more efficient at holding pressure than card wads so these powder charges may result in over pressure if a plastic gas seal is used.

Hercules Reloading Guide.pdf
Reloading for Shotgunners.pdf

Play but play safe!

The page with red bordered tables is from an old Hercules powder reloading manual.

The page headed "Lead Slug Load Data" is from Reloading for Shotgunners.

Longbow

Yes, and I want to thank you very much again for looking that Unique data up for me. I just thought I would make a thread and ask if anyone else had experience with Unique in a 7/8 oz load. It seems so darn puzzling that such a dramatically versatile powder possibly might not work well at that one simple loading.

@FullTang:
Yes, I remember FortuneCookie45LC very much liked Unique for slugs, but those vids are gone from the aggravating YouTube.

Guys, thanks for all the comments, but really, the Unique powder plus rifled choke info is what I'm searching for here. I've studied these Lee slugs for over 3 years and am aware of many other loads, but have a quite good supply of Unique I would like to utilize.

Thanks!
Vettepilot

[longbow]

I agree! Unique is incredibly useful over a huge variety of cartridges, bullet weights, shot loads and slugs, and it is an old powder so I am surprised there isn't more information/reloading data on it beyond "middle of the road" loading. For example it seems that Unique is used a lot for 1 1/8 oz. and 1 1/4 oz. shot loads and for 1 oz. slugs but the 7/8 oz. data seems hard to find and at the other extreme is Ross Seyfried's article on loading for his Paradox gun using a 740 gr. Paradox bullet over 21.5 gr. of Unique. I wouldn't have thought it would be a good choice for really heavy slugs but there it is! Not something I have found in a reloading manual.

I will say that I made a rookie mistake (especially since I actually had 7/8 oz. slug load data available I hadn't seen until I looked for Vettepilot) by looking at a 1 1/8 oz. slug recipe using Unique and figured "That oughta work under a Lee 7/8 oz. slug!" NO is the answer! I had really inconsistent burn and many shots left unburned powder in the bore. Turns out the charge was too light for the payload so not enough pressure to burn completely. DOH!

So, as versatile as Unique is there are limits!

Longbow

[JeepsAndGuns]

I have tried some unique with the lee 1oz key drive, and the russian copy of the lyman sabot slug. Both times, unique was the worst performer of the ones I tested.
I have had pretty decent luck using 700x with the key drive. I load a standard 1-1/8 ounce birdshot load of 700x. Using the AAHS hulls, it calls for a WAA12 wad. I use a 1/4 inch felt under the slug to get a good crimp.

I did, just the other day shoot the last 50 lee key drive slugs I had loaded. I shot 10 with a carlsons cylinder bore choke, and then swapped that out for a carlsons rifled choke (same gun). I did see a noticeable improvement in the group size. I did not measure as I was just informally shooting, but I would guess probably a inch or more.

[Vettepilot]

I have tried some unique with the lee 1oz key drive, and the russian copy of the lyman sabot slug. Both times, unique was the worst performer of the ones I tested.
I have had pretty decent luck using 700x with the key drive. I load a standard 1-1/8 ounce birdshot load of 700x. Using the AAHS hulls, it calls for a WAA12 wad. I use a 1/4 inch felt under the slug to get a good crimp.

I did, just the other day shoot the last 50 lee key drive slugs I had loaded. I shot 10 with a carlsons cylinder bore choke, and then swapped that out for a carlsons rifled choke (same gun). I did see a noticeable improvement in the group size. I did not measure as I was just informally shooting, but I would guess probably a inch or more.

Hmmm... well, that sounds promising then for the rifled choke possibly. Guess I'll give it a shot. My times out shooting are limited, so I should probably keep the experiments separate. IE: do one session with cylinder bore and rifled choke, but with a powder that's known to work such as the Universal that I happen to have open. Once that's sorted and "logged", then on another outing, try some Unique loads.

@Longbow: remember those Lee slug loads using 3" hull and nitro cards and non-plastic cushion wads that they said were accurate? Maybe I should make up some of those with Unique.

Since you're trying to fill up the 3" hull by using 2 cushion wads in those, I've thought of trying some combination in a 3" hull, but instead of using 2 cushion wads, a plastic gas seal, plus cards, etc.; use black powder. I've loaded black powder shot and wax slugs before... great fun!!

Vettepilot

[longbow]

I haven't used BP under slugs, just with 0.690" RB's.

I'll suggest using all card wads along with a lube soaked felt or fiber wad.

I made the mistake of using a plastic wad over BP! What a mess to clean out if the barrel!

No reason it won't work though.

If you have screw in choke tubes you'll want to remove the choke tube and barrel then flush it well with hot soapy water to get all the BP fouling out of the barrel and especially the fine choke tube threads.

I guess if you are a BP shooter this isn't news!

I hope you have better results than I did yesterday with Brenneke'ized Lee slugs and Moose Minies!

It was good to get out shooting but test results were pretty poor.

Oh well!

Longbow

[Vettepilot]

Hmmm... I've heard that mentioned before about black powder and plastic wads; that they make a mess. But I used plastic wads and had no problems at all. Anyway, if you ever do run into that again, acetone is supposedly the hot ticket to clean up the mess.

After a very long session shooting wax slugs with my daughter one time, we had a barrel fairly well fouled with wax. A 12 gauge stainless steel spiral brush took it all out in a pass or two. (I would never use a steel brush on anything except a shotgun though...)

Sorry to hear about your most recent slug foray. What happened??

Vettepilot

[longbow]

Weeeelll... it is probably too long a story to go into all the details but briefly (I hope!):

I have made and posted info on Brenneke'ized Lee slugs in the past and had reasonably good success by adding a tailwad to the Lee slugs. Previously I had cast on hot melt glue tailwads using a form much like the Maxx Bear video link you sent me except I used hot melt glue in a machined form and kept them as wad slugs. That worked not badly but the taper of the Lee slugs makes it hard to ensure alignment in the form... the slug can tilt all around the large nose equator since the skirt is smaller diameter.

I had also in the past used a slug from a mould originally intended for slugs for use in thick steel shot wads but added a tailwad plus patched that slug up to fit a standard trap wad in the bore. Those shot pretty well.

So, I decided to combine ideas and size the Lee slugs to remove taper, Add a tailwad then patch up to proper fit. Should have worked well I would have thought (but what do I know?). I also took Ranch Dog's idea of using shotcup with cushion leg cut off and replacing with hard card wad column. All pretty much proven performance enhancers... except results weren't very good!

Some of the poor accuracy I will blame on me and the bad relationship I have with the Mossberg Slugster's rear sight. I can't see the bead very well so did open up the rear sight a bit and that helped but have to go some more. I suspect that groups would have been much tighter if I wasn't having trouble seeing the bead but even then they wouldn't have been a really good groups at 25 yards, acceptable, maybe even decent but not really good.

Recovered wads and slugs seem to show that the skirt flaired a bit and damaged wad petals. I am not sure why that would happen but many wad petals were clipped off or damaged at the height of the attached wad and two slugs I recovered both appear to have slightly flaired trailing edge on the skirt. if so then the glue wads must be bulging into the cavity and pushing out on the lower edge of the skirt. I have had that happen with hard cad wads where there is so much set back that the wad is extruding into the cavity causing the skirt to flair. For a bore diameter slug the bore would stop it but for a wad slug the wad gets damaged.

I will have to revisit that and see if I can prevent it but more likely I'll just use the unsized/tapered Lee slugs with screw on wad next time. That taper may be there for more than just petal taper. The Lyman sabot slug has about the same taper to it so...? I will also steal Ranch Dog's shot cup on hard card wad column idea again as well.

I'll leave it there so I don't hijack your thread.

As for the BP and plastic, I have also read posts where people say not a problem. I am not sure whether the BP melted the plastic wads or whether it was a case of plastic being shredded by dry hard BP fouling. What I do know is it was a mess! When I brushed the bore I had hard dry BP fouling coming out and ribbons of plastic! Acetone might have done it but even if I had thought of it at the time I didn't have any acetone. This was also many years ago so maybe plastic wads are different material now?

Longbow

[Vettepilot]

Well, keep at it Longbow, and good luck. I rather doubt I'll make it out to do any testing 'till after the holidays now. Just too busy!

Vettepilot